You all might be thinking, why is someone showing so much hate against the caste system? Well, just because some of our Tamil people are fans of it, doesn’t mean, that the system is only doing good to people. There are many issues that I had to face because of this ridiculous system and today I want to share my experience with you. A broken relationship is just one example.

Let me start by saying, that I am not going to name anybody who was involved in this period of time. I will be pretty honest and open about certain things and I hope you understand what my main issues were and why I won’t ever advocate ‘our caste system. The things You should know about me are, that I’m a young Tamil woman at the beginning of her 20s.

How our relationship began

A couple of years ago, I got this message on Facebook from a guy. Let’s name him Kathir. He seemed to be a nice guy, who was living far away. Even though I wasn’t a big fan of long-distance relationships, there was something that mesmerised me about him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and decided to give it a shot. The first time we talked to each other on the phone, I was a bit hesitant. To be honest, I didn’t think it would lead to a very long conversation, but I was proved wrong and we talked through the night.

„About what, you ask? About everything. Caste, Family, Friends, Studies and much more.“

After a couple of weeks, we decided to step ahead and arrange a first date. So, I took the bus to his city and we met for a cup of coffee at Mc Donalds. I should’ve known that his intensions are not aligning with mine, because he was very adamant, that I should visit him, instead of him visiting me. Soon enough I got to know that his personality is not as I imagined it to be.

He loved everything about himself and he was pretty open about that, too. Every time I would ask him something, he dived into this very long story, in which he portraited himself as a hero or a king. It’s a shame that I wasn’t able to see his disgusting behaviour. I was one of those teenagers who didn’t know how to be treated in a right way. Well, after this awkward meeting, I backed up and wanted to forget everything about it.

What it means to be in a relationship with a caste-priveleged person

Kathir was very stubborn and he made me feel like I should indeed be in a relationship with him. He said, that he never met someone like me before and he would rather die than lose me. Later I got to know, that he wasn’t seeing me as a person with feelings, but just as an object. You could say, that it was a form of emotional blackmailing. Many phone calls and many messages passed, and I felt like giving in.

„I was dreaming about changing his personality. The stupid kid in me thought he would change and all he needs is love.“

I was ready to give him all the love he seemed to need. Since I care about the people I love, I was concerned about everything that had to do with him. I feel ashamed to say so, but I neglected my family for him. Started to ignore them and their problems. The only person in my mind was Kathir. He didn’t really care about my feelings, but it felt like I was stuck with him for the rest of my life. Like I was depending on him. Not because of the money or physical stuff, but emotionally I was tied to him and I couldn’t figure out how to untie the knot.

Long-distance relationships require a lot of teamwork and care. It felt like I was the only one giving and not getting anything in return. One day we had a huge argument on the phone. It started off with him not being able to understand that I have feelings and emotions, too. That day was the first day I decided to speak up and let him know, that he is hurting me with this sort of behaviour.

„I thought, that he might not have done it intentionally, but today I could slap myself for being this naïve. It didn’t take him long to hurt me further.“

The role of the caste in our relationship

He decided to talk about caste. As I mentioned before, caste was a topic that we had talked about during the early stages of “getting to know each other”. I have never thought, that he would say something negative about it.

„Just because they were Vellalar and we were Thadchar, he told me to shut up.“

Further he continued by yelling, that I don’t have a say in this relationship, and I should watch my mouth. Never have I ever felt this way before. Anger, Sadness, Disappointment. I felt numb, because the words he said made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be happy and I didn’t deserve to state my opinion.

„This conversation changed everything. It made me realise, that people who are caste driven, never accept the opinion of “lower caste” people.“

After this incident, I tried to let go of Kathir. Whenever he would call me, I would act like I’m busy, just because I didn’t want to talk to him. Many days passed like this and I started to slowly get out of these hurting memories. That’s when he messaged me this huge paragraph with an “apology”. Me, being the dumb head, I am, I believed him and started to talk to him again.

Many times, when we would have an argument, I questioned myself on why I’m relying on him, but couldn’t find the answer. 1,5 Years went by and sooner or later I really started to feel “happy” in this relationship. We even told our parents and made plans to move together, since that was a good financial decision, we thought. Everything was planned well and we started to dream together. We started to fight for each other and plan our future.

The sudden end of our relationship

„It was really confusing and very hurtful for me to find out, that he found another “better” woman, who was from his caste.“

Apparently, they have been in contact with each other for more than 6 months at that time and the parents already knew about that. This news just drove me right into a deep depression. I couldn’t figure out, why he was playing with my feelings.

So, I decided to confront him for one last time and then put a full stop to this shit that he was doing with me. I was happy that I confronted him, because only then I saw his real face. He never changed. I discovered that he played with my feelings just to feed his ego. He wanted to feel “powerful” and wanted to own someone. In this case that “thing” was me..

Additions

This is PART V of our „caste system“ series. See here the other articles of this series.

• Hidden and unseen and yet relevant – The caste system (Vijitha Vijay – PART I)
• The complexity of the caste system (Larvaniya S. – PART II)
• The caste system – human contempt legitimized (Sinthuja Sathees – PART III)
• From prejudices to broken families and more – the caste system (Nerocy C. – PART IV)
• Breaking Barriers – How to Stop Maintaining the Caste System (Larvaniya S. – PART VI)
• From Kingdoms to Colonization – the Manifold Influences on Today’s Caste System (Shabin Shanmugalingam – PART VII)
• The Caste – Illusion of the Past or Mute Companion of the Future? (Sanu Sri – PART VIII)

Bild („Broken Hearts Original“) under Creative Commons Lizenz by Fractured Fairytales

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